Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1887-09-13

Careless ana communicative, and the
rain dropped them all along, at Yonkers,
| Riyeriale. Hastings.
AT a few minutes past ) O'Clock Rinnln-
ger stood on his graveled walk He
had little surprise i'll store for Lou. He
waited for her To put her head through
| the lilacs. He had gown accustomed to
| this little luxury of expectation and i'm
patient welcome.
For the first time he was disappointed.
| But in the three or four seconds that hs
stood there making noise on the gravel
with his cane, he noticed how strangely
still the afternoon was against the blithe-
| ness of the morning. Then he went into
the house with a sudden eagcrness
Bobbles was tied in high chair at the
window, his head hanging over On his
arm. His eyes were red. He had evil
IDENTIFY cried himself to sleep The table
stood empty in the middle of the room.
He had pictured the dinner waiting and
the copper tea urn singing and steaming.
The voiceless place maidened him.
Lofty" he cried encouragingly, and
then imperatively, stamping his foot
Lofty put her head through the kitchen
door. looking little scared.
where's Mrs Binninger9''
''Shure, and thin she's not come yeti"
"Well where's the telegram, Why
don't you give me the dispatchy'
''1ndade. there's nary dispatch at all"
He WAS losing his temper. He damned
the country telegraph service.
sect the dinner on the table. She'll he
starved To death VIII IN she gets here. III
go down and get thu, dispatch"
Nothing here, sir" said the girl at the
telegraph office. ''id sent it up if there
had been"
He'd wait for the next train. 1t thun-
dered along in few minutes. He told
Charley Purdy 10 wait with a hack She'd
he too tired To walk up the hill He saw
the crowd get of. His wife was not
among them. His r.stlessness was grow
ing at frightful pace. She must be on
the next train.
He tried To laugh ut his fears; called
himself a fool. But no sooner had hs
done 50 than up rose with terrible dis
tinctness the great, sveltering city, with
its myriad dangers, its colliding life and
death and the possibility of his darling
having fallen into some snare OF met with
some accident. He invented Thousand
absurd reasons to account for her absence
and silence, and they only added to his
misery by their ingenious shallowness.
At . O'Clock u new and terrible idea
was sprnging up in his mind in spite Of
every effort to keep it down. 1t was this:
''She will never come back
He heard Bobbles crying as he ap-
preached the cottage. He thought there
was u strange, desolate pathos in it he
had never heard before. He felt cold
sense Of something down in his soul, Us if
q relentless iron We're working its way
into his consciousness.
He walked the floor with his teeth set.
- though TO keep the phantoms Of his
imagination back.
And SO the long night passed with no
wife, and only the sobs Of the child wax
snz at intervals and calling for Ma"
As soon Ms ii was light Lofty went over
and brought Mrs. Chamberlain, neigh
sor. She looked at Binninger with con
Germ. His whole face had changed.
She tried to cheer him with u woman's
dnesse and duplicity.
'What a boy you are" she said: Lou
has been detained by somebody. and she
has neglected to wire You because she ex-
pected to come back You are borrowing
trouble. It's annoying but certainly not
serious. I've done it myself You will
go down and make some inquiries and
III stay here till she comes, and then tel
egraph YOU" This is the slap on the
back Of the hearty man when the bell Of
doom is tolling in your soul.
The aerolite had fallen.
The next day passed hopelessly and
helplessly
Lou never came back to the cottage
She was lying there on slab in the
morgue, waiting to be identified.
Love was searching the earth for her,
and made sure to come at last, when all
hope gave out, to this CHASTITY finale.
Lou had hurried across town from her
10 see maid who had adver-
tised. She had been compelled. on account
Of . street disturbance, To get out of the
vehicle and walk. In Forty-second street
1t l O'Clock she fell under the rays of the
sun and was carried into the hallway of a
tenement house. Ten minutes later a
mob surged through the streets chased by
the police. Some of the vicious characters
who always swarm on such occasions took
refuge in this house. One woman pulled
the dress half of the insensible lady and
then wrapped her own dirty and ragged
shawl about her. Rough men fought over
her body. She was mistaken afterward
Tor one of the same class, and an ambu-
lance carried her to the hospital, where
ME died while Binninger was waiting for
he S:3l train.
went up To the funeral didn't know
Binninger. He looked so tired and fright |
.ned.
But shall never forget the strange odor
II those lilacs. l stood there and saw
hem carry out the coffin, and heard |
Bobbles somewhere upstairs sobisng and
,alling. .-Nym Crinkle in New York |
World